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‘Let’s ask Ashe,’ he said, grabbing Havelock by one arm and towing him across the floor with an air of desperation. ‘Kind of chap who reads books when he don’t need to is bound to know something worth knowing about matrimony.’
Which was rot, of course. But Chepstow was clearly panicking. Anybody who thought they could get away with manhandling him across a room, whilst babbling about books, had obviously lost his wits.
But then the topic of matrimony was apt to do that to a fellow. He wouldn’t willingly put his head in the noose if there was any alternative. But, having racked his brains for hours, Havelock simply couldn’t find one.
So he’d decided that the only thing to be done was to see if he couldn’t somehow sugar-coat the pill he was about to swallow. Find some way, unlikely though it seemed, to find a woman who wouldn’t oblige him to alter his entire way of life.
Who wouldn’t try to alter him.
‘Ashe, and, um...’ Chepstow floundered as he shot a blank look at the second man at the table with Ashe.
‘Morgan,’ said the Earl of Ashenden, waving a languid hand at his companion. Havelock had seen Morgan about, at the races, Jackson’s, this club and various social events, though had never had cause to speak to him before. Son of some sort of nabob, if memory served him. Nothing wrong with him, so far as he knew. Just not out of the top drawer.
Not that he cared a rap for any of that. Not at a time like this.
Introductions dealt with, Chepstow thrust Havelock into a chair, then perched on the edge of his own as though ready to take flight at a moment’s notice.
‘Havelock has decided he wants to get married,’ he announced, rather in the manner of a man who has just tossed a hot potato out of his burnt fingers. Then he practically pounced on the waiter, who’d ventured into the library to see if any of the young gentlemen needed refreshment.
‘We need a bottle of wine,’ declared Chepstow with feeling.
‘Not want to,’ Havelock explained once the waiter was out of earshot. ‘Have to. Need to. And before you start questioning my ton, no, it isn’t because I’ve suddenly started seducing innocents,’ he growled, shooting Chepstow a resentful look. ‘That’s not it at all.’
‘Steady on,’ said Chepstow, pushing enough books aside that the waiter would have room to put a bottle and some glasses down when he returned. ‘Sort of mistake anyone could make. With you looking so...out of sorts. And then broaching the topic the way you did.’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Ashe in that quiet way he had that somehow made everyone listen. ‘Perhaps the best thing to do would be to let Havelock explain, in his own words, just what his problem is and how he thinks we may be of assistance? Before he feels compelled to call on his seconds.’
At Morgan’s look of alarm, Ashe chuckled quietly. ‘It is a foolish man who casts a slur on Havelock’s honour these days.’
‘I don’t, and never have, challenged my friends to duels.’
‘You shot off half of Wraxton’s ear,’ put in Chepstow.
‘He wasn’t my friend.’ Havelock folded his arms over his chest and glared across the table at Ashe. ‘And it wasn’t me he insulted. But...a lady.’
‘Oho! And I thought you said you weren’t in the petticoat line.’
‘I’m not. Never have been. It wasn’t like that—’
‘From what I heard,’ put in Ashe mildly, ‘if it hadn’t been you, it would have been her husband who challenged him.’
‘He should have done,’ snapped Havelock. ‘Only...’ He sighed, and pushed his fringe out of his eyebrows irritably. ‘I lost my temper with him first.’
‘Never mind,’ said Ashe soothingly. ‘At least someone shot him. That is the main thing.’
‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ admitted Havelock, as the waiter returned with a tray of wine and clean glasses. Meeting Wraxton had been nothing like the first duel he’d fought. Wraxton would have killed him stone dead if his pistol hadn’t misfired. And therefore he’d wanted to kill him right back. If it hadn’t been for a freakish bout of hiccups throwing his aim off, causing him to nick the man’s ear rather than put a hole through what passed for his heart, he would have done. And would then have had to flee the country or face charges for murder.
Seeing how close he’d come to bringing dishonour on his family through sheer anger had pulled him up short. Since then, he’d made much more effort to keep a rein on his temper.
Although few people were foolish enough to think they could get away with goading him, after the affair with Wraxton. The tale had got about that he’d deliberately marked the man. That he was a crack shot.
Which just went to show what idiots most people were.
‘I only wish,’ he said, pouring himself a generous measure of wine, ‘my problems now could be solved by issuing a challenge, picking my seconds, then putting a bullet into...someone. But the fact is I need to get married,’ he said glumly. ‘And soon. But I don’t want to end up shackled to some harpy who will make my life a misery by constantly nagging at me to reform. And the thing with women,’ he said, lifting the glass to his mouth, ‘is that you never can tell what they’re really like until after they’ve got you all legally tied up.’ He took a gulp as he recalled just how many times he’d seen it happen. One minute they’d been blushing brides, tripping down the aisle all sweetness and light, and the next they’d become regular harpies, henpecking the poor devil who’d married them into an early grave.
‘Well, the answer, then, is to make sure of the woman’s character before you wed her,’ said Ashe with infuriating logic.
‘And just how am I supposed to do that in the limited time I have available?’
‘Marry someone you know well,’ said Morgan as though it was obvious.
‘God, no!’ Havelock seized his glass and threw the rest of its contents back in one go. ‘I can’t face the thought of actually living, in the same house, with any of the girls I know really well. And anyway, they wouldn’t oblige me by marrying quickly. They’d want a big society affair.’ He shuddered. ‘Not to mention a massive trousseau, and so forth.’
‘So, to be blunt, you want a girl who will take you exactly as you are, and won’t demand a big society wedding.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You are looking for a mouse,’ put in Morgan. ‘A mouse so desperate for matrimony she’ll take what little you’re prepared to offer.’
‘That’s it,’ he cried, startling the sneer from Morgan’s face. ‘That would work. Morgan, you are a genius.’
‘You’d better be prepared to accept someone plain, then,’ returned Morgan, somewhat taken aback by his enthusiasm for a suggestion he’d made with such sarcasm. ‘And probably poor, as well.’
Havelock leaned back for a moment, considering. ‘Don’t think a plain face would put me off, so long as she’s not a complete antidote.’
‘Just a moment,’ put in Ashe. ‘Though, for whatever reason, you have decided to marry now, and in such haste, you must not forget the matter of succession. All of us, except perhaps you, Morgan,’ he said, giving the nabob’s son a dry smile, ‘have a duty to marry and produce sons to take over our responsibilities in their turn.’
‘Point taken,’ said Havelock before Ashe could state the obvious. It went without saying that he’d have to find someone it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to bed.
‘I notice you haven’t denied needing a girl with a sizeable dowry,’ said Morgan, looking at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Is that why you need to marry in such a hurry? In need of an heiress, are you?’
At that point Chepstow, who’d got through two drinks to Havelock’s one, let out a bark of laughter.
‘Just because I’m not one of the dandy set,’ said Havelock, self-consciously putting his hand to his neckcloth, which he’d knotted in a haphazard fashion much, much earlier that day, and no doubt looked even further from the apparently effortless elegance attained by the other men about the table, ‘that don’t mean I haven’t a tidy income.’
Morgan eyed the pocket of Havelock’s jacket, which had somehow got ripped half off during the course of the day, and then lowered his gaze to his muddied boots, which he hadn’t stopped to change after the devastating interview with his lawyers. He’d walked and walked whilst trying to come up with a solution, before he’d noticed he was passing his club, and decided to come in and see if anyone else could come up with any better ideas.
‘I don’t need a woman to bring anything but herself to the union,’ he finished belligerently.
Once again it was Ashe who defused the tension, by summoning the waiter who’d been hovering at a discreet distance, and asking him to fetch ink and paper.
‘What we need to do, I think, is to make a comprehensive list of exactly what you do need, before we set our minds to the problem of how you may acquire it.’
‘There,’ cried Chepstow triumphantly. ‘Didn’t I say that Ashe was the very fellow to help? I’ll just...’ He half rose from his chair.
Havelock only had to glare at him for a second or two to take the wind out of his sails. A gentleman didn’t bail out on his friends when they’d gone to him for help. Havelock had stood by Chepstow every time he’d needed help getting out of a scrape. Now the boot was on the other foot, he expected a similar show of loyalty.
Chepstow subsided into his seat with an air of resignation and, in a hollow voice, asked the waiter, who just then arrived with the writing materials, to bring them another bottle of wine.
‘So,’ said Ashe, dipping the pen into the ink, ‘you do not require beauty, or wealth, in your prospective bride. But you do require a compliant nature—’
‘A mouse,’ repeated Morgan derisively.
Ashe shot him a reproving look over the top of his spectacles.
‘Undemanding. And not one of the circle in which you habitually move.’
At Havelock’s shudder, Ashe wrote, not of the upper ten thousand on his list.
‘Any other requirements?’ He paused, his hand hovering over the paper.
Havelock frowned as he considered.
‘Quite a few, actually. That’s what makes it all so damned difficult.’ He ran his fingers through his hair, for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Not that it made any difference to the style, or rather lack of it. It was fortunate he wasn’t obsessed with his appearance, for his thick, curly hair did whatever it wanted. Impervious to comb, or pomade, the only thing was to keep it short and hope for the best.
‘I don’t want a woman with any family to speak of,’ he said with feeling.
‘You mean...no titled family?’ The nabob’s son shot him a glance loaded with sympathy. ‘Wouldn’t want them looking down on you.’
Before Havelock had a chance to get up, seize the fellow by the throat and give him a shaking, Ashe put in mildly, ‘Morgan is not aware of how very well connected you are, Havelock. I am sure he meant no insult.’
No, Havelock sighed. He probably didn’t. And anyway, he’d already decided to forgo the pleasure of indulging in a decent set-to with anyone within the walls of this club.
‘Look, I’m related to half the bloody ton as it is,’ he explained to the bemused Morgan. ‘What with stepbrothers, and stepsisters, and all the attendant stepcousins and aunts and uncles and such like all thinking they have a right to poke their nose into my affairs, I don’t want someone bringing yet another set of relatives into my life and making it any more complicated, thank you very much.’
He saw Ashe write the word orphan on the list.
Morgan nodded. ‘Makes sense. And an orphan, a girl with no family to support her, is all the more likely to agree to the kind of bargain you seem determined to strike.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
Chepstow poured a large measure of wine into Havelock’s empty glass and nudged it towards him.
‘I am sure Morgan meant nothing you need take offence at, Havelock,’ reproved Ashe in the reasonable tone that so many men found damned supercilious.
He was beginning to understand why.
Havelock folded his arms and glared across the table.
To his credit, Morgan met his look without blinking.
Ashe removed his spectacles and set to polishing them with a silk handkerchief he produced from an inner pocket of his tailcoat. ‘May I make a suggestion?’
‘I wish you would. It’s why I came in here, after all. See if anyone could help me find a way through this...morass,’ said Havelock.
‘Well, for myself,’ said Ashe diffidently, ‘I could not stand to be married to a woman who did not possess a keen intellect.’
‘Lord,’ said Havelock, aghast. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with a bluestocking!’
‘Oh, come,’ said Lord Chepstow, his devilish grin returning for the first time since they’d sat down. He then proceeded to offer a variety of suggestions about what exactly a man could do with a bluestocking, her garters, and various other items of apparel before descending into a spate of vulgarity that, though a little off the topic at hand, did at least serve to lighten the atmosphere.
When they’d stopped laughing, had wiped their eyes, topped up all their glasses and called for another bottle of wine, Ashe brought them all back to the point.
‘You mustn’t forget that this woman, whoever she may be, will be the mother of your children, Havelock. So, as well as considering what kind of woman you could tolerate living under your roof, you should also ask yourself what kind of children do you want to sire? For myself, I would hope my own offspring would have the capacity to make me proud. I would hate to think,’ he said, giving Havelock a particularly penetrating look, ‘that I had curtailed my own freedom only to produce a brood of idiots.’
Havelock ran his fingers through his hair yet again. ‘You are in the right of it.’ He sighed. ‘Must think of the succession. Very well, put that on your list, Ashe. Not completely hen-witted.’
Since Ashe was taking a sip of wine it was Morgan who picked up the pen and wrote that down.
‘I want her to be kind, too,’ declared Havelock with some force. ‘Good with youngsters. Not one of these women who think only of themselves.’
‘Good, good, now we are really getting somewhere,’ said Ashe, as Morgan added these further points to the steadily growing list.
‘It’s all very well making a list,’ put in Morgan, tossing the pen aside. ‘But how do you propose finding a woman who meets all your requirements? Put an advertisement in the papers?’
‘God, no! Don’t want the whole world to know how desperate I am to find a wife. I’d have every matchmaking mama within fifty miles of town descending on me with their simpering daughters in tow. Besides...’ he shook his head ‘...it would take too long. Much too long. Only think of having the advertisement put in, then waiting for women to reply, then sifting through the mountain of responses, then having to interview them all...’
Morgan let out a bark of laughter. ‘You are so sure you will have hundreds of replies, are you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Havelock testily. ‘I’ve had women flinging themselves at me every Season for the past half-dozen years.’
‘And during summer house parties,’ put in Chepstow.
‘There was that Christmas house party, wasn’t there,’ Ashe added, ‘where—’
‘Never mind that!’ Havelock interrupted swiftly. ‘I thought we’d agreed never to speak of that episode again.’
‘Then there was that filly at the races,’ said Chepstow.
Morgan laughed again. ‘Very well. You have all convinced me. Havelock is indeed one of those men that society misses regard as a matrimonial prize.’ Though the way he looked at Havelock conveyed his opinion that there was just no understanding the workings of the female mind.
‘And you wouldn’t believe some of the tricks they’ve employed in their attempts to bag me,’ he said bitterly.
‘Couldn’t you simply settle with one of these women who’ve shown themselves so keen to, um, bag you? That would save you time, wouldn’t it?’
Havelock gave Morgan a cold stare, before saying, ‘No. Absolutely not. Can’t stand women who flutter their eyelashes and pretend to swoon, and flaunt their bosoms in your face at every opportunity.’
Modest, he noted Ashe write on the bottom of the list, out of the corner of his eye.
‘And anyway, the girls I already know, the ones who have made it plain they want me, have also made it plain they want a damn sight more from me than I’m willing to give. I’d make them miserable. So then they’d make damn sure they made me miserable.’
Ashe dipped his pen in the inkwell one more time, and wrote, not looking for affection from matrimony.
Morgan frowned down at the list, sipping at his drink. ‘What this list describes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘is a woman who is willing to consider a businesslike arrangement. Someone from a respectable family that has fallen on hard times, perhaps. Someone who would like to have children, but has no hopes of gaining a suitor through the normal way.’
‘Normal way?’
‘Feminine wiles,’ supplied Morgan helpfully.
‘Oh, them,’ huffed Havelock. ‘No. I definitely don’t want a wife who’s got too many feminine wiles. I’d rather she was straightforward.’
Honest, wrote Ashe.
‘Good grief,’ said Chepstow, peering rather blearily at the list. ‘You will never, ever, find a woman who has all those attributes, no matter how long you look.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Morgan. ‘There are any number of genteel poor eking out an existence in London right at this moment. With daughters aplenty who’d give their eye teeth to receive a proposal from a man of Havelock’s standing, from what you tell me. I’m tolerably sure that he could find one or two amongst them who would have at least a couple of the character traits he finds important. Particularly if he’s not going to be put off by a plain face.’
Havelock leaned forward in his seat. ‘You really think so?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And do you know where I might find them?’
Morgan leaned back, crossing one long leg over the other, and stared hard at the wall behind Havelock’s head. The other men at the table waited with bated breath for his answer.
‘Do you know, I rather think I do. I could probably introduce you to a couple of likely prospects tomorrow night, if you don’t mind—’ He broke off, eyeing Havelock’s less-than-pristine garb, and laughed. ‘No, you don’t look like a chap who stands on ceremony. And I have an invitation to a ball, given by people who will never be accepted into the very top echelons of society, for all their wealth. Yet, amongst their guests, there are always a number of people in the exact circumstances to be of use to you. Good families, fallen on hard times, who have to put up with what society they can get. I dare say every single female there of marriageable age will look upon you as a godsend.’
‘And you wouldn’t mind taking me to such a ball?’
‘Not in the least,’ said Morgan affably. ‘Is that not what friends are for? To help a fellow out?’
It was. He’d been on the verge of being disappointed in Chepstow. But really, the fellow had done what he could. He’d brought him to Ashe, who’d helped him to get his thoughts set down in a logical fashion, and introduced him to Morgan, who was going to give him practical assistance.
‘To friendship,’ he said, raising his glass to the three men sitting round the table with him.
‘And marriage,’ said Ashe, lifting his glass in response.
‘Let’s not get carried away,’ said Lord Chepstow, his glass stopping a mere inch from his lips. ‘To Havelock’s marriage, perhaps. Not the institution as such.’
‘Havelock’s marriage, then,’ said Ashe.
‘Havelock’s bride,’ said Morgan, downing his own drink in one go and reaching for the bottle.
‘Yes, don’t mind drinking to her,’ said Chepstow. ‘Your bride, my friend.’
And let’s hope, thought Havelock as he carefully folded the list and put it in his pocket, that the woman who possesses at least the most important of these attributes will be at the ball tomorrow night.
Chapter Two
‘Can you really do nothing better with your hair?’
Mary lowered her gaze to the floor and shook her head as Aunt Pargetter sighed.
‘Couldn’t you at least have borrowed Lotty’s tongs? I am sure she wouldn’t begrudge them to you. If you could only get just a leetle curl into it, I am sure it would look far more fetching than just letting it hang round your face like a curtain.’
Mary put her hand to her head to check that the neat bun, in which she’d fastened her hair earlier, hadn’t already come undone.
‘No, no,’ said Aunt Pargetter with exasperation. ‘It hasn’t come down yet. I am talking in generalities.’
Oh, those. She’d heard a lot of those over the past few months. Generalities uttered by lawyers about indigent females, by relations about the cost of doing their duty and by coach drivers about passengers who didn’t give tips. She’d also heard a lot of specifics. Which informed her exactly how she’d become indigent and why each set of people she’d been sent to in turn couldn’t, at present, offer her a home.
‘Now, I know you feel a little awkward about attending a ball when you are still in mourning,’ Aunt Pargetter went on remorselessly. ‘But I just cannot leave you here on your own this evening to mope. And besides, there will be any number of eligible men there tonight. Who is to say you won’t catch someone’s eye and then all your problems will be solved?’
Mary’s head flew up at that, her eyes wide. Aunt Pargetter was talking of marriage. Marriage! As if that was the answer to any woman’s problems.
She shivered and lowered her gaze again, pressing her lips tightly together. It would solve Aunt Pargetter’s problems, right enough. She hadn’t said so, but Mary could see that keeping her fed and housed for any length of time would strain the family’s already limited resources. But, rather than throwing up her hands, and passing her on to yet another member of the family upon whom Mary might have a tenuous claim, Aunt Pargetter had just taken her in, patted her hand and told her she needn’t worry any longer. That she’d look after her.
Mary just hadn’t realised that Aunt Pargetter’s plan for looking after her involved marrying her off.
‘You need to lift your head a little more and look about you,’ advised Aunt Pargetter, approaching her with her hand outstretched. She lifted Mary’s chin and said, ‘You have fine eyes, you know. What my girls wouldn’t give for lashes like yours.’ She sighed, shaking her head. And then, before Mary had any idea she might be under attack and could take evasive action, the woman pinched both her cheeks. ‘There. That’s put a little colour in your face. Now all you need to do is put on a smile, as though you are enjoying yourself, and you won’t look quite so...’
Repulsive. Plain. Dowdy.
‘Unappealing,’ Aunt Pargetter finished. ‘You could be fairly pretty, you know, if only you would...’ She waved her hands in exasperation, but was saved from having to come up with a word that would miraculously make Mary not sound as though she was completely miserable when her own daughters bounced into the room in a froth of curls and flounces.
Aunt Pargetter had no time left to spare on Mary when her beloved girls needed a final inspection, and just a little extra primping, before she bundled them all into the hired hack they couldn’t afford to keep waiting.
‘We have an invitation from a family by the name of Crimmer tonight,’ Aunt Pargetter explained to Mary as the hack jolted over the cobbles. ‘They are not the sort who would object to me bringing along another guest, so don’t you go worrying your head about not receiving a formal invitation.’
Mary’s eyes nevertheless widened in alarm. She hadn’t any idea her aunt would have taken her to this event without forewarning her hosts.
Aunt Pargetter reached across the coach and patted her hand. ‘I shall just explain you have only recently arrived for a visit, which is perfectly true. Besides, the Crimmers will love being able to boast that their annual ball has become so popular everyone wants to attend. But what is even more fortunate for you, my dear, is that they have two sons to find brides for, not that the younger is quite old enough yet, and I’ve heard rumours that the older one is more or less spoken for.’